Field of the Invention and Description of the Prior Art
This invention relates to a snowmoble trailer assembly of the type which is secured by a hitch mechanism to the rear of a truck or automobile and is constructed so as to generally support one, two, three or four snowmobiles thereon.
Trailers for hitching onto the rear of trucks, trailers, vans and the like have been used for many years for hauling a snowmobile or snowmobiles. Two place and four place snowmobile trailers are quite well known. Snowmobile trailers have generally been designed with a tilting bed arrangement wherein the bed is tilted from a level or horizontal position to an inclined position where the rear of the bed contacts the ground. This enables the snowmobile to be driven onto and moved from the trailer.
With the known tilting bed snowmobile trailers, problems are encountered when the snowmobile is driven onto the trailer assembly. In this regard, when the bed assembly is in the tilted position so as to enable the snowmobile to be driven thereon, the bed assembly, from the weight of the snowmobile and after the snowmobile is driven onto the trailer, drops to a substantially level position. However, when the bed drops to the level position when the machine is being driven, that is, under power, the snowmobile has a tendency to surge ahead. At times, the snowmobile will actually drop off the front of the trailer or possibly even hit the towing vehicle with the result that the snowmobile can injure the driver, persons in the vicinity, or cause damage to the trailer or vehicle towing the trailer.
On the other hand, if a person is careful in driving the snowmobile onto the trailer assembly, but has not driven far enough, the bed actually stays at a somewhat downwardly tilted position so that it is necessary to lock the brakes of the snowmobile or to block the snowmobile so that it will not slide off rearwardly while a second snowmobile is driven onto the trailer.